Enterprise Weekly #469: RSA Review, A Word of Caution for AI Startups, and More
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This week, the RSA Conference took San Francisco by storm and we had our cybersecurity expert Kelley Mak on the ground. There was one looming question in the air: How can we safeguard systems against the tidal wave of generative AI?
While the new tech brings opportunities to streamline systems and enhance efficiencies, there's also a parallel surge in possibilities for malicious actors. This scenario breeds a sense of urgency for enterprises to button up their security efforts. But there are some setbacks:
Behind on innovation: Many enterprises are still grappling with the complexities of multi-cloud environments, let alone diving into the new innovations needed for generative AI.
Resource constraints: Enterprises face a mountain of regulations that impede their ability to innovate quickly as well as the demand to do more with pre-existing budgets.
Talent gap: The cybersecurity sector grapples with a persistent talent shortage given the challenge of training individuals in a manner that's on-demand and scalable, as well as capable of keeping pace with the rapid evolution of the technology.
To drive more urgency, some CISOs are getting creative in how they’re educating their teams on the real-life risks possible by AI cybercrime.
As for startups building with AI, a word of caution:
🍺 Join more IRL Work-Bench events:
Tuesday, May 14: DevOps Happy Hour for DevOps, SRE, and infra corporate practitioners
Tuesday, May 14: AI Rooftop Happy Hour with Air Street Capital for AI founders, operators, and researchers
Wednesday, June 5th: NYC Enterprise Operators Retreat with a killer lineup of speakers from Grafana, Linear, Databricks, Pinecone, Hugging Face, Retool, Merge, Clay, Chronosphere, and more
Wednesday, May 22: NY Enterprise Tech Meetup with a female VC panel from a16z, Lux Capital and Work-Bench on what it takes to get funding and what the stickiest tech trends are in today’s environment
🖥️ Don’t miss our tactical (virtual) Work-Bench Enterprise Masterclasses:
Wednesday, June 18: How to Price Your Product at Seed (& Proven Hacks To Get It Right) with repeat founder and GTM advisor Rob Bailey
Wednesday, June 26: 10 Quick Wins to Grow Pipeline with OpenView’s Kyle Poyar
Wednesday, July 24: 5 Battle-Tested Leadership Tactics of Highly Successful Founders with David Politis, Founder of BetterCloud
📚 Read more news:
Crunchbase: Deal-Making Involving VC-Backed Startups Picks Up Slightly, But Still Slow
The Information: How Investment Banks Are Helping Canva, Stripe, Figma Stay Private
WSJ: IT Unemployment Rate Falls Slightly Amid Broader Hiring Slowdown
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: Runhouse
Role: GTM Lead
Technology: ML Development Platform
Funding: Unannounced
🌟 Company of the Week 🌟
Composabl raises $4.2M led by Momenta Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Founders: Kence Anderson (CEO), Xavier Geerinck (CTO)
EV3 Global raises $3M led by Real Tech Capital
HR Tech • Venture • Denver, CO
Greenboard raises $4.5M led by Base10 Partners
Future of Work • Seed • Austin, TX
Token Security raises $7M led by TLV Partners
Risk / Security • Seed • Tel Aviv, Israel
Monocle raises $7.5M led by F2 Venture Capital
Sales / Marketing • Seed • New York, NY
Paxafe raises $9M led by Framework Venture Partners
Future of Work • Series A • Indianapolis, IN
ChangeEngine raises $10M led by Threshold Ventures
Sales / Marketing • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Numeric raises $10M led by Founders Fund, Menlo Ventures and Others
Future of Work • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Panax raises $10M led by Team8
Future of Work • Series A • Tel Aviv, Israel
Espresso AI raises $11M led by Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • New York, NY
Blackwell Security raises $13M led by General Catalyst and Rally Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • Ann Arbor, MI
Anetac raises $16M led by Liberty Global
Risk / Security • Seed • Los Altos, CA
Nudge Security raises $16.5M led by Forgepoint Capital
Risk / Security • Seed • Austin, TX
Daloopa raises $18M led by Touring Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • New York, NY
RunPod raises $20M led by Intel Capital and Dell Technologies Capital
Infrastructure / Dev Tools • Seed • Mount Laurel, NJ
DatologyAI raises $46M led by Felicis
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Redwood City, CA
Legion Technologies raises $50M led by Riverwood Capital
Future of Work • Venture • Santa Clara, CA
Atlan raises $105M led by GIC, Meritech Capital, and Others
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series C • San Francisco, CA
Wiz raises $1B led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive
Risk / Security • Series E • New York, NY
DocuSign acquires Lexion for $165M
Future of Work • Acquisition • Seattle, WA
Akamai acquires Noname Security for $450M
Risk / Security • Acquisition • Palo Alto, CA